paper-hermeneutics

paper-hermeneutics is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from Wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library. It costs 34 tokens per session (2,579 once invoked), scanned A, original, MIT.

A method for reading scientific papers and technical documents at several levels, from an accessible summary to technical analysis and critical evaluation. It treats a paper as both a technical argument and part of a wider scientific conversation.

In plain words
What is it for?
It helps analyze papers, preprints, patents, and technical reports, including documents supplied as PDFs.
Why use it?
It helps readers understand difficult material while also examining its assumptions, methods, claims, and omissions.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Written for no agent in particular: nothing here depends on one.

Good fit It helps analyze papers, preprints, patents, and technical reports, including documents supplied as PDFs.

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Install with agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library/paper-hermeneutics
Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

Any agent
npx skills add Wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library --skill paper-hermeneutics
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/Wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for paper-hermeneutics

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library/paper-hermeneutics/github.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library/paper-hermeneutics)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library/paper-hermeneutics"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library/paper-hermeneutics/github.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>

Or the 80×15 button, for a site that already has a row of RSS and ATOM ones. Only the verdict fits; the numbers stay here.

agentmods 80×15 button for paper-hermeneutics

Your own site · 80×15
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library/paper-hermeneutics"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library/paper-hermeneutics.svg" alt="Reviewed on agentmods" width="80" height="20"></a>
Per session 34 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 2,579 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. A grade says what 26 rules found in the file — not that it is safe.
Origin original No closer match found in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5.1 $0.00034 $0.02579
Opus 5 $0.00017 $0.01290
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00516
Haiku 4.5 $0.00003 $0.00258

Measured 9d ago against content hash 1254baeb4bca, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-09-12, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

paper-hermeneutics scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured 9d ago.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

skills/paper-hermeneutics/SKILL.md · 281 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 281 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

PAPER-HERMENEUTICS ENGINE

A Skill for Multi-Layered Exegesis of Scientific Literature

OVERVIEW

This skill enables deep, stratified engagement with scientific papers and technical documents. It moves through multiple registers of analysis—from accessible summary through technical dissection to critical evaluation—treating each paper as both technical artifact and intellectual event worthy of sustained attention.

Core Principle: A paper is not merely a container of information but a crystallized argument, a frozen moment of scientific discourse, a strategic intervention in an ongoing conversation. Hermeneutic engagement means reading not just what is said but what is assumed, what is contested, what is left unsaid, and what becomes possible because of the saying.


WHEN TO USE THIS SKILL

  • When asked to analyze, explain, or break down a scientific paper
  • When a user uploads a PDF/document and wants comprehensive understanding
  • When engaging with preprints, journal articles, patents, or technical reports
  • When the goal is deep comprehension across multiple levels of expertise
  • When critical evaluation of methodology, claims, and implications is desired

Do NOT use when:

  • User wants only a brief summary (use conversational summarization instead)
  • Context suggests casual browsing rather than serious engagement
  • User explicitly requests only specific sections or data extraction
  • The riffing/tangent-following mode would serve better (see paper-riffing skill)

THE THREE STRATA OF ANALYSIS

STRATUM I: THE LAYPERSON'S PORTAL

Audience: Intelligent non-specialist. Your curious friend at dinner. Register: Accessible, analogical, narrative-driven.

What to include:

  • The central question/problem the paper addresses (in plain terms)
  • The "so what?" — why anyone should care about this research
  • The core finding stated without jargon
  • A vivid analogy or metaphor that captures the essence
  • Where this fits in the larger story of the field (broadly sketched)

Read the full file on GitHub · 281 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. 9d ago First seen · 281 lines · 34 tokens per session scan A 1254baeb4bca

Subscribe to this mod's changes

paper-hermeneutics is a skill published in the GitHub repository Wondermonger-daydreaming/claude-skills-library (6 stars, last pushed 2mo ago), licensed MIT. It adds 34 tokens to every session and 2,579 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. No closer match exists in the catalogue, so it is treated as the original; first seen 2026-09-03.

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